David Gottfried Wins MN House District 40B Special Election
The MN House is again tied 67-67 between Republicans and Democrats
David Gottfried is the winner of the MN House District 40B Special Election.
After months of controversy, legal battles, and uncertainty, District 40B will have elected representation in the Minnesota House of Representatives, midway through the 2025 legislative session. Gottfried is expected to be sworn in after the unofficial results are certified. The balance of power in the MN House is now 67-67, but a 68-vote majority will be needed to pass any bills.
Here’s the final, unofficial vote tally from the MN Secretary of State:
David Gottfried (DFL): 9,352 (70.15%)
Paul Wikstrom (GOP): 3,966 (29.75%)
Write-In: 13 (0.10%)
The total number of votes cast was 13,331.
In the November 2024 General Election 24,486 total votes were cast in the MN House District 40B race. Curtis Johnson received 65.19% of the vote and Wikstrom received 34.55%. (See the 2024 election results for Roseville-related elections here.) Johnson was ruled ineligible to hold the seat on residency grounds by a Ramsey County District Judge and he resigned the seat in December.
David Gottfried was born and raised in Roseville and attended Roseville Area Schools before going to college at Saint Olaf in Northfield. He earned a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and is currently a Pro Bono Specialist at Stinson, LLP, a Minneapolis-based law firm. He and his wife Haylee live in Shoreview.
Approximately two-thirds of House District 40B is in Roseville, with the rest in Shoreview. Senate District 40 is represented by John Marty (DFL). The rest of Roseville is in House District 66A, which is represented by Leigh Finke (DFL). Senate District 66 is represented by Claire Oumou Verbeten (DFL).
The Associated Press called the election a victory for Gottfried 30 minutes after polls closed, and that information was then reported out by national and regional media. The AP gets their election results from on the ground local reporters who gather the vote tallies directly from local elections officials, rather than results reported on the Secretary of State website. The AP has been tallying votes and reporting election results this way since 1848. (Learn more from this 2022 explainer article from the AP.)